Now we know that it is actually being a data labeller, AI tutor and content moderator, but in very low wage countries such as in India.
This is the post-AGI reality. 'Abundance', but not for you.
> With just four months left on her contract, which pays about £260 a month
Earning US$350/mo working remotely in a village in one of the poorest states in India is an extremely competitive given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast fashion for Zara earning US$130-150/mo [0], doing bit piece ag labor for around US$100/mo and participating in MGNREGA for US$50/mo, become a housewife, or become a Naxalite/Maoist insurgent to earn a couple thousand dollars when surrendering [1].
Content moderation means interacting with extremely depressing and horrid content, but someone needs to do it, and once models get good enough we would start seeing articles about how "all the good 100% remote first jobs with no barrier to entry" are being automated to oblivion.
Yes it sucks, but the alternative is becoming a migrant worker or working in light manufacturing where QoL is worse. Heck, we used to see similar articles about Chinese workers for Apple barely 14 years ago in then equally poor Sichuan [2], but you don't see those kinds of articles anymore.
Development takes time and the fact that US$350/mo remote data annotation and content moderation jobs are now penetrating into villages in what used to be the Naxalite/Maoist/Red Corridor where bombings and gun battles were a part of normal life just 10 years ago [3] is a massive step up developmentally - it means that there is robust enough internet, literacy, banking, and public services penetration for the seeds for a services economy to form.
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes westerners - my family is from these kinds of villages in India and Vietnam. The alternatives are extremely bleak - especially for a tribal woman like Ms Murmu at the bottom of the social and patriarchal hierarchy.
[0] - https://theprint.in/ground-reports/industries-finally-return...
[1] - https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/18-yr-old-maoist-...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-...
[3] - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/Nov/23/six-maoi...
but maybe you have an idea of how manual labor feels (people always do some of it) but no idea how this type of horror feels and what it does.
1.) bit-piece agriculture work for the local landlord who will never pay salaries on time because he has the power
2.) migrate to the nearest big city (in this case Ranchi, Dhanbad, or Patna) and work at a factory for 12 hours a week with the exact same risks
3.) get married off
4.) join a Maoist outfit in order to surrender and get government rehabilitation benefits.
And all of this is assuming the men (and it's always men) who they are reporting to are not lecherous abusers which is a very real risk in these kinds of jobs for women in Ms Murmu's status.
Like out of all the bad options, this is the least bad one - especially in an area that was a warzone barely a decade ago.
not that I wish this on anyone but you would change your mind very quickly if you had to do this job for just one hour. it can fuck you up for life
A tribal woman like Murmu who is clearly living in the Red Corridor districts (based on surname and geographic location) doesn't have any better choice.
Yes content moderation introduces you to horrid content, but the alternatives give the very real risk of physical and sexual violence.